Penn State Football: Changing McQueary Story Throws Sandusky Case into Chaos

Considering all the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal that has affected the Penn State athletic department in particular, perhaps no impact has been as massive and unusual as the perjury charges that were handed down to athletic director Tim Curley and (now former) vice president Gary Schultz.

Yes, Joe Paterno's firing was the one that directly affected most Penn State fans, and understandably so, but football coaches get fired fairly regularly. Here, Paterno's boss and a senior vice president of the university were both facing state charges for what prosecutors believed was a failure to report a crime.

The perjury charges stemmed from the testimony of former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary, who testified that he witnessed sexual acts between Sandusky and an unnamed alleged victim and that he related that knowledge to the appropriate authorities who then eventually did nothing. A grand jury determined that McQueary's testimony was more credible than that of Schultz and Curley.

And now, according to the inimitable Sara Ganim of the Patriot-News, McQueary's given date of the alleged assault has been moved. By 13 months.

That is a problem.

Prosecutors are now going to have to contend with the fact that the new date of the alleged incident is now in February of 2001, which, depending on the other incidents in the case, could place it outside of the statute of limitations for prosecution.

There's also the fact that McQueary's testimony was directly cited by the grand jury as the reason Schultz and Curley were facing charges. And now, it appears he didn't even get the year of the incident right. So regardless of whether everything else McQueary is actually true, he's now got credibility questions that could undermine his entire testimony.

This isn't to say that Sandusky is considerably closer to beating the charges; there are still at least 10 alleged victims for which he'll be standing trial, and more accusations have been made. McQueary's testimony only involves one.

But McQueary's testimony is also apparently the only one connecting the case to Curley and Schultz, so if this new revelation directly affects the understanding of Penn State's handling of the Sandusky scandal as it happened, expect a strong reaction from Penn State's proud and vocal fanbase.